A second senior living community now has met the criteria to be recognized as a certified university based retirement community, the highest level of recognition bestowed by UniversityRetirementCommunities.com, the website announced Sunday.

The Woodlands at Furman, a continuing care retirement / life plan community in Greenville, SC, is the first certified UBRC in the eastern United States, and the second overall, after Mirabella at ASU in Tempe, AZ. UniversityRetirementCommunities, a national directory and information resource about the senior living communities that are connected with a host university or college, launched the certification program last fall.

“As universities and colleges celebrate commencement nationwide, we are incredibly proud to ‘graduate’ as a certified UBRC, the equivalent of magna cum laude status,” Woodlands President and CEO Rick Brackett said in a press release. “We are truly honored by our partnership with Furman University and the work of the entire team at The Woodlands in creating an active, intellectually stimulating and intergenerational environment that is reinventing senior living while bringing residents and students together to meet the needs of an aging population.”

The Woodlands is located on land leased for 99 years from Furman University. Residents can participate in the university’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and receive courtesy greens fees at the Furman Golf Course and discounts to both athletic and visual and performing arts events. The community provides opportunities for students internships, employment and volunteer work. Almost four dozen residents have a personal connection to the university, including alumni, retired faculty and staff members, and past board members. 

Three-year certification from UniversityRetirementCommunities allows The Woodlands to display the certified logo along with higher search ranking on the UniversityRetirementCommunities website.

UniversityRetirementCommunities founder Andrew Carle said it was “imperative” that a program bring structure for the growing sector of retirement communities located on or near institutions of higher education, particularly those communities that achieve the highest level of integration with a host college or university. 

As director of the program in senior living administration at George Mason University, Carle created a five-criteria model in 2006 for a UBRC. The criteria served as the basis for the certification program, with those communities meeting all five, along with related, standards eligible for certified status.

Carle also previously was the senior consultant-health intelligence for J.D. Power and Associates, helping to develop its Senior Living Community Certification Program, which launched in 2018.

Senior living communities looking to be certified must meet criteria related to the proximity of the community to a campus, the existence of formalized programming between the community and the academic institution, the offering of a full continuum of senior living services, the existence of a formal business relationship between the community and the university, and having a resident population that includes at least a 10% mix of academic institution alumni, retired faculty members or staff members.

An increasing number of retirement communities are locating on or near college campuses. Texas A&M just announced that it has entered a public-private partnership with on-campus development builder and operator Varcity to build the university’s first residential retirement community for alumni and fans at the Bryan-College Station, TX, main campus. 

Last year, Edenwald Senior Living and Goucher College announced plans for the first university-affiliated retirement community in Maryland. The entities join the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Stanford University in California, the University of Texas at Austin, Arizona State University, Berry College in Georgia, Purchase College in New York and other educational institutions across the country that are partnering with senior living providers on such communities.